APC Under Fire as Total Registered Party Membership Drops from 41m to 10m

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has come under public scrutiny following fresh claims that its registered membership now stands at about 10 million.

The new figure has triggered debate across the political space because it sharply contrasts with earlier declarations made by the ruling party ahead of the 2023 general elections.

Concerns were raised by Sumner Sambo, Editor for Politics at Arise News, during a discussion on Arise Television’s Morning Show on Monday.

He described the new membership figure as inconsistent with what Nigerians were previously told by the party leadership.

Sambo reminded viewers that in March 2022, the APC had officially announced that it had registered 41 million members nationwide. That figure was presented as proof of the party’s strength going into the presidential election.

He questioned how such a large number could suddenly drop to 10 million within a few years. According to him, the sharp reduction casts doubt on the accuracy of the earlier records released by the party.

Sambo also linked the issue to the outcome of the 2023 presidential election. He noted that President Bola Tinubu won the election with about 8.7 million votes, a number far below the 41 million members earlier claimed by the APC.

This, he said, raises serious questions about the credibility of the party’s registration figures and internal data management.

He said:

“Now talking about the APC saying that it’s now having 10 million members. Well, this is funny. Funny enough because the same APC told us specifically March 2022, we had then the chairman of the caretaker extraordinary convention committee, and incumbent governor of Yobe, telling us that the APC had 41 million registered members.

“So at what point in time did 41 million registered members now become 10 million members? Because these were some of the things that we raised going into the 2023 general elections that APC was actually trying to toy with how the election outcome was going to look like.
What was the result that President Tinubu had? He had about 8.7 million votes. So where were the 41 million registered members of the APC that the APC told us in 2022?

“Now, four years after since 2022 the APC is telling us that they have about 10 million registered voters. Well, I think this national chairman is being conservative, and he has said that the target that they have in this registration is 20 million, you know members of the party. So that means APC owes Nigerians an apology for having told us that they had 41 million members in 2022 only for us to see that that was not the situation. But the good thing that we’re having here is that APC is adopting technology to register its members.”

Despite his criticism, Sambo acknowledged the party’s decision to use digital tools for its new membership registration exercise.

He, however described the move as a positive development that could improve transparency if properly implemented.